Beijing Shidai Yingyin International Entertainment Co., Ltd has filed a lawsuit against Shanghai Juli Media Technology Co., Ltd, the owner of Internet video platform provider PPlive which allegedly violated its copyright, at the Shanghai Pudong Court and claims CNY330,000 in compensation.

This is the first time that PPlive has been sued because of a violation of intellectual property rights.

Shidai Yingyin says it found in March this year that PPlive was offering Huahua Xingjing, a film for which it owns the copyright, online to users and this has caused great economic loss. A representative from Juli Media says that PPlive has been respecting copyrights and spent more than CNY60 on copyright protection last year.

The P2P technology PPlive had a total userbase of 85 million by October 2007. At the beginning of this year, Juli Media received a third batch of venture capital, worth US$21 million, for PPlive.

No decision in the case will probably be known for at least one more month.